


The City in Which I Love You

by magdaliny



Series: Notebook No. 6 [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Smut, M/M, optional coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-25 01:45:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14368230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdaliny/pseuds/magdaliny
Summary: Bucky wakes up to a fingertip resting on the bridge of his nose.





	The City in Which I Love You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JHSC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JHSC/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Город, в котором я тебя люблю](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16363718) by [apharti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apharti/pseuds/apharti), [fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018/pseuds/fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018)



Bucky wakes up to a fingertip resting on the bridge of his nose. Steve's thumb, if he had to guess, as it sweeps along towards his cheekbone, tip-tapping against the very ends of his eyelashes on the way there. He turns towards it and gets Steve's whole palm as a reward, big enough to cup half his face, dry and warm, smelling freshly of soap and only a little of horse. Bucky can probably only smell that because he's covered in lanolin for a change; they all smell of horse out here, eventually. It seeps into their skin.

“Mmm,” Bucky says, as Steve kisses his forehead. “Lip chap, sunshine. It exists.”

“I keep forgetting,” Steve says. Like Bucky isn't aware. “Did you mean to fall asleep on the job?”

“I _am_ working. Furnace duty.”

Bucky's sweater obligingly emits a soft _maaaah_. He opens his eyes just in time to catch Steve making the helplessly sweet expression he always swears doesn't occur when he's presented with babies of any species but human. Steve tugs the collar of Bucky's sweater down just enough for the ram lamb to stick his nose out, head bobbling on his skinny neck. He falls asleep gumming at Steve's fingers. Bucky tucks his head back inside next to his sister's, and closes his own eyes when Steve's hand comes back up and strokes through his loose hair. Yeah. Taking his bun out before he laid down was a damn good decision. Steve's fingers massage gently at his temples, his hairline, gentler at his crown where he bumped it on a tent-pole the other day. It's still a little sore. His scalp tingles, not just from the touch but the tenderness, too; their faces turned close together in the quiet of late afternoon, the resting-hours, animals dozing in the setting sun and the night insects not yet awake. Two pattery heartbeats against his belly and Steve's slow strong pulse on his skull. If Bucky could press moments like flowers between the pages of a book, he'd pick ones just like this.

“That was the lamb saliva hand, wasn't it,” Bucky murmurs a minute later.

“Yup,” says Steve.

 

* * *

 

Of course, nothing lasts forever. There's a clamor outside the livestock ger just before Octyabr yells: “Gurigen! Come quick! I need strong fingers!” and Steve says, “Oh boy, placenta,” as Bucky tries and fails to avoid laughing hard enough to wake up the lambs. They seem a lot less shivery than they were an hour ago, so he brings them out and finds their mother by process of elimination, feeling warm and oddly powerful as they totter around her. Before he goes to see how Steve's getting along, he takes two strips of blue cloth out of his pocket and ties them around the lambs' necks so he doesn't forget to check on them when he brings them in at sunset. Blue's lucky, also, out here.

He finds Steve triumphant, which means he's sticky to the elbows and Octyabr's only looking at him with mild disapproval instead of baffled exasperation, and between them on the ground is the biggest newborn colt Bucky's ever seen. The mare's already getting to her feet, the trooper. “Hey,” Steve says, grinning like he's pulled off a magic trick, which he kind of has. “Can you believe this guy?”

“Your long-lost brother,” Bucky says, “Look, same nose,” and dodges the hand Steve pretends to swipe at his knees, grabbing it instead and hauling Steve upright. Oktyabr makes dismissive gestures at both of them. “C'mon, Dr. Doolittle, let's get you cleaned up.”

“If you'd told me a few years ago I'd be doing this today,” Steve says, on their way to the washbarrel, “I'd've clocked you one. But it sure is a rush.”

“I'll ask if you still think that the first time you lose circulation in your hand for an hour,” Bucky says. Steve, the innocent, just snorts. “Who'da thunk you'd have an aptitude for it, huh? Especially the way you started out.” Steve had, in the beginning, vacillated between terror that he was going to hurt one of the animals, and a beautifully pure city-boy disgust for every new bodily fluid he encountered. _A little amniotic fluid never hurt nobody_ , Bucky remembers saying, and Steve had replied: _I'm never kissing you again_.

He's come a long way.

Steve tries to make a face, but his lip twitches and ruins it. “Well, I had motivation.”

“How's that?”

“I like the way you look at me when I do something that's not fighting,” Steve says.

“Asshole,” Bucky says. “I'm gearing up to take the mick outta you and you come out with something as earnest as all that? Go to hell.”

“Fine! I'll go see if Octyabr needs any more help. She appreciates my honesty. She said so.”

Bucky catches Steve before he can pretend to about-face, spinning him just in time for both of them to wind up in front of the barrel. “Does it worry you that she calls you her son-in-law?”

“No,” Steve says. “It worries me that she _laughs_.”

Bucky dunks all four of their arms up to the elbows, soaking his own shirt, but that's all right; he's not planning on wearing it too much longer. Steve, under the misapprehension that the next hour of his time belongs to Octyabr, tries to get away with a cursory scrub. Bucky shoves his hands back under the water.

“Do better,” Bucky says. “I got plans for those.”

“Oh? I'm all ears.”

“You're all petsl. Luckily for you, I like that in a man.”

Steve grins. “I thought you had plans for my hands, not my dick.”

“We'll see,” Bucky says ominously.

The inside of their ger isn't standard by any stretch of the imagination, but since it does its job of keeping everyone else out, Bucky doesn't much mind. Octyabr and Altan Arasen had poked their heads in one time and made horrified noises at Bucky's decorating decisions and lack of respect for tradition, and they haven't done more than knock on the door and shout ever since. The only thing traditional about it is necessity: they can't keep anything they can't load onto a couple of camels.

Nearly half the floor is taken up by their over-sized bedroll. Steve's idea; he'd argued they'd be spending just as much time on that as they would on their feet, and Bucky's grateful he pushed for it. It's covered in enough pillows to stock a haberdashery shop, which wouldn't normally be practical, but on one of his visits to civilization Bucky'd picked up a vacuum packing machine that turns them into so many brightly-colored pancakes. Octyabr'd instantly declared it communal property. Bucky's pretty sure that getting to watch a cranky old Mongolian woman vacuum-sealing half the world and cackling is a decent trade-off when it comes to losing his possessions.

Steve carefully folds up all of his clothes as he takes them off, the goon. “Those need to be washed anyway,” Bucky says, as he pushes Steve down onto the bedroll and crawls on top of him, taking the last half-folded shirt and flinging it over his shoulder without looking. He hopes it hasn't landed on the stove.

“That's not the— _mmph_ ,” Steve counters; whether that's appreciation or a commentary on the knee that nearly emasculates him, Bucky's not positive. They kiss for a long time while Steve strokes Bucky's back, working his way up to digging his knuckles into the muscles around Bucky's shoulder blades, especially the left. Shuri and her folks worked miracles, but Bucky thinks that scapula is always going to be a little hateful, especially in cold weather. Bucky returns the favor by rubbing under Steve's ears and along his jaw with his thumbs, which always turns Steve into a puddle of jelly. They're both more amoeba than human by the time Bucky pulls off and says, “How do you feel about reverse cowgirl?”

“Reverse what-now?” Steve says. “If that's a sex thing, the answer is yes.”

Bucky cracks up; Steve said it so gravely, oozing sincerity like Bucky had asked him for his solemn vow instead of a good dicking. Bucky'd hoped to startle him but this is much better.

“Steve!” Bucky says, still laughing. “You can't just _agree_ to stuff like that! God! What if I'd wanted something really weird?”

“Unless you want me to go out and perform unnatural acts with a sheep, I'm game for just about anything.”

“You are, aren't you,” Bucky marvels. “For a guy whose sexual experience was zero as of last year, you're a beacon of opportunity, hotshot.”

“What can I say,” Steve says, sliding his hands down to Bucky's ass and squeezing. “You inspire me.”

Bucky's not going to admit that was a smooth move. He glowers. “Next time I'm making you look it up. Why'd I go to all that trouble getting wifi out here if you won't even use it?”

“We're _nomads_ , Buck.” Steve opens his eyes real wide with the mistaken impression that it'll make him look innocent. It just makes him look like a startled cat. “We live off the _land_.”

“Octyabr has two cell phones,” Bucky says, “Don't give me that,” and starts hauling Steve around where he wants him. Steve doesn't struggle, but he doesn't help either, turning floppy just like he did all through the 30's whenever Bucky tried to be the responsible one and make him go to bed at a reasonable hour; Bucky's got more than a few fond memories of dragging Steve down the hall by one arm like a caveman with a dead elk. When Steve's successfully sitting halfway up against the mound of pillows, Bucky turns and mounts his lap backwards, hands on Steve's knees. Steve instantly drops the ragdoll act and clutches at Bucky's waist.

“Oh Jesus,” Steve says prayerfully. “I'm gonna last all of five minutes that way.”

“Big deal. You'll be good to go again five minutes afterwards.”

“And what're you gonna do, just hang out on my dick?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, “I'm almost done that book Sam sent me,” and Steve pinches the skin over Bucky's hipbone hard. It turns molten in his belly, shocking him with how fast it winds him up. Bucky twists and then twists further, awkwardly and not caring, hooking his elbow behind Steve's neck and tilting Steve's head back over his arm as he kisses him deep and wanting. _The garden_ , Bucky thinks suddenly, _I wanted to do this in Wakanda, I wanted him to do it to me_ ; and he rocks his ass back against Steve's wet dick and shudders.

“C'mon, c'mon, c'mon,” Bucky says, “Gimme, give it to me,” and Steve laughs and says: “Geez, okay!” as he grabs the pillow with the cleverly concealed zipper they hide their sex paraphernalia in. When Octaybr's cousins' children and the neighborhood kids come round—a neighborhood which, in their case, consists of about a hundred square miles—they get into everything that isn't nailed shut, and the afternoon little Orbei had played at herding the goats wearing one of Altan Arasen's more flamboyant bras for a hat had been a chilling reminder of the ways in which it could've potentially been much, much more embarrassing.

Steve slicks up practically his whole hand and reaches around to grab Bucky's dick, which is the opposite of what Bucky asked for; his furious snarl's only half pretend. Steve ignores him, kissing and biting from his neck to his shoulder, pausing to pay extra attention to his scars. Having discovered recently that the strange pseudo-numbness there translates to champagne bubbles in Bucky's brain _only_ when some dumb punk loves all over it, Steve's been hyperfocused about his attention. Normally Bucky wouldn't mind, but he's got a goddamned game plan here. When Steve's fingers finally crawl down to where he wants them, Bucky relaxes and slumps against the wall of muscle behind him, tipping his head back onto Steve's right shoulder. It has the added benefit of giving Steve more scar real estate to work with, and this time Bucky doesn't complain at all.

It's taken them a long time to work up to this. In the early days they were always running into the edges of what Bucky could handle, and Steve had kept saying _But you're not having fun; you should be having fun_ , and Bucky'd replied, again and again: _I miss it, I used to love it, fuck you_. He'd felt terrible, because Steve clearly wasn't having any fun in those moments either, but Bucky was damned if he was going to let his jigsaw shitshow of a trauma reflex dictate what he could or could not do with his own asshole. Luckily, his stubbornness paid off. The first time Bucky'd successfully managed to get a couple of fingers inside himself without throwing up or checking out or otherwise doing something Steve considered Not Sexy, he came twice in a row and nearly blacked out. He'd drifted back to Steve hovering and petting him all over and saying reverently, “Okay, wow, you like it—you _really_ like it, okay,” and afterwards things had gone, if not with ease, then at least with more orgasms.

Even now, Bucky's learned that he has to be vocal, has to practically goad Steve into it if he's really feeling like getting worked over, because otherwise Steve'll spend forever playing with him slow and careful like Bucky's liable to break. They've spent a few nice afternoons that way, admittedly. But today— “C'mon, sweetheart,” Bucky growls, pressing back. Steve jerks, his dick trapped in the hot space between his stomach and Bucky's tailbone. “ _Yeah_ you do, c'mon.” Bucky shifts just enough to plant one heel and roll his hips. Message received; it finally gets him a third finger and Steve's teeth set hot into the side of his neck. Even, surprising him, Steve's other hand coming up to tug at his nipple, twisting it meanly between his thumb and the callus on his middle finger.

“God _damn_ ,” Bucky says. “Oh, you bastard.”

“Want me to quit?”

“Don't you dare.”

Bucky reaches back to cup Steve's skull and keep him there, laughing when he hears Steve make a delicate, exasperated spitting noise. “Get this out of the way, Rapunzel,” Steve says, and Bucky drags all of his sweat-stuck hair around to the other side. He's thought _I need to cut it_ about four times a year for the last two years and hasn't bothered, not when it meant putting in the effort to buy scissors instead of using the sheep shears or someone's belt knife. He knows it's a spurious thought, since most men out here on the plains have long hair anyway, but he likes that it makes him feel softer, sweeter, like somebody who's never hurt so much as a fly in his whole goddamn life. And if one day he manages to convince Steve to use it as a handle, well, that'll be a bonus too.

As soon as Steve takes his fingers back and reaches for a condom, Bucky tips forward onto his toes and his knees and rocks, impatient, trying to catch Steve's dick hands-free. Steve very kindly doesn't laugh at him, just grabs Bucky's hip and steadies himself so Bucky can— _oh_ yeah. That's the ticket. Bucky swivels, prolonging the stretch, playing with just the head until Steve finds some impatience of his own and wraps his forearm around Bucky's waist, easing him down. Steve sits up further so he can get his hands all over Bucky's stomach, his chest, scratching at him and making little overwhelmed groans. Bucky doesn't make any noise; he enjoys this part too much. Steve's on the smaller side of average and he's perfect, he's _perfect_ , he hits Bucky just right. When Bucky can't go any further he lets his bent legs go loose, lets his ankles flop, dropping all of his weight down, fuck, right there.

“God that's good,” Bucky sighs. He shimmies in place. Steve flops back against the pillows, panting. “Y'okay there, tiger?”

“Don't—just don't move.”

“Awful big ask. What's got you so wound up today?”

“You,” Steve says, “Your face; the usual,” but Bucky's not sure it's his face that's entirely to blame, here. A few moments later he feels Steve spread him to look. That coils him right up, Steve peeking at himself stretching Bucky out, disappearing inside him.

“Dirty,” is what Bucky says aloud. “You like that? You like watching it?”

“Shut up,” Steve says. “This was your—this is all your—” He doesn't finish.

“My what?” He flexes, not really riding yet, just arching his back and showing off. Steve grabs at his hips, his belly, possessive. “I dunno if you noticed, but I get— _ah—_ I get these things sometimes, they're called _good ideas_.”

“Christ. Shut _up_. Stop talking immediately.”

Bucky grins where Steve can't see it. “You like it when I talk. Yelled at you for two hundred pages and you still loved it.”

“Didn't.” Aww. It's cute when Steve tries to lie.

“I bet you did. How— _uh_. How many times did you read about me jerking it to you when you were in Wakanda?”

Steve gasps in, in, like he's been punched. “I never—there wasn't any locks, there was a _psychic_ down the hall, I couldn't, I—”

“Oh,” Bucky says conversationally, “So if you'd _had_ some privacy—”

“ _This is not helping me last longer_ ,” Steve hisses, and Bucky laughs so hard he has to stop, it's too much, his muscles jumping and fluttering in unexpected places; he trails off into something that's almost a moan. Steve in him _deep_ and his fingers digging hard into his own thighs. Damn close already.

“Then gimme,” Bucky says, clenching, and Steve grabs at him bruisingly and rolls up into him just a sweet little bit.

“C'mere,” Steve says, bending his knees and pulling Bucky with him until they're half laying down. Bucky reaches up and back and loops his hands around Steve's neck, letting his head tip over Steve's shoulder again, and he was here not long ago but something about it now strikes low in his belly like flint, how exposed he is with his knees falling open and his throat on display. He doesn't know whether he wants to press into the feeling or curl into a ball, even as Steve gets both arms around him and hugs him tight, kissing up the side of Bucky's neck to his jaw, biting, leaving a mark. When Steve's hips start to move Bucky's whole body rocks with it; he doesn't have to do a damn thing but hang on and groan. Steve panting wet in his ear.

“Yeah, sunshine, _god_ ,” Bucky says, when Steve picks up the pace without encouragement. Heat coiling slow in his belly—or at least it feels that way until Steve barely palms his dick and it blindsides him completely. He nearly arches out of Steve's grip when he comes, convulsing, digging his fingers into Steve's shoulders, the noise he makes shocky and embarrassingly loud. Steve shoves his face into Bucky's neck and moans low and snaps up once, twice, holding Bucky's hips down hard the third time and grinding in deep like he means to put down roots.

Bucky's been slowly tilting since he came, and he feels gravity finally start to win. With Steve's arms still around him they roll off the pillows onto their right sides, the impact smacking a laugh out of Bucky and a squeak out of Steve, which makes Bucky laugh harder. Steve catches the giggles a minute later, but it doesn't stop him from slotting a knee between Bucky's and biting his shoulder, still rocking his hips in little pulses as he softens.

“Not our most dignified effort,” Bucky says when he recovers. Steve rubs his face against Bucky's hair and sighs; Bucky can hear the smile in it. “C'mon, get outta me, you lummox.”

When Steve obeys, Bucky doesn't go far, only wriggling away enough so he can roll over and get his arms back around Steve's neck. He bumps their faces together and presses his mouth to Steve's cheek, the bridge of his nose: hardly even kissing, just feeling.

“Hey,” Bucky says. “Steve, hey. Hey. Guess what.”

Steve, suddenly flustered, even though Bucky does this _every time_ : “What?”

“I love you.”

As per usual, and in a way he never does when Bucky talks about what he wants to stick where and for how long, Steve goes brick red and swallows his tongue. “Are you trying to make me associate that with sex?” Steve asks after a minute. “You never say it outside the ger anymore.”

“I don't say it outside anymore because Octyabr knows what it means in English now.”

“So? Poke her back. She trolls you at every available opportunity, I don't see why—”

“That's _exactly why_ ,” Bucky says. “That's a game I _can't win_ , Rogers, it's a war of attrition and I'm Germany in 1918, that woman is infinitely wilier than either of us will _ever be_.”

“Well,” Steve says, visibly fighting a grin, “If anyone can aspire to be that much of a shithead, it's you,” and as Bucky tackles him to the bedroll, Steve crows: “I believe in you!”

 

* * *

 

The problem with Bucky, Steve thinks fondly, while he watches the man in question scrub himself down with a pail of lukewarm water and a washcloth, is that he's a hypocrite. Bucky'll tease Steve forever about folding clothes, remaking the bedroll every morning, sweeping out the yurt every night—but then he'll go and wash himself like a cat an hour before they're going to go out and wrestle a few dozen animals into the livestock ger. Not that Steve's complaining, exactly, as he sneaks another look at Bucky contorting like a gymnast to inspect a blister on his heel. Not a stitch on him, just his long hair and his prosthetic and the bracelet Wanda sent him for his birthday last year, tiny red beads catching on the bones of his wrist; _Christ_ he's so beautiful Steve can hardly breathe, sometimes.

When their tablet makes its video call noise, Steve drops the book he's not doing a very good job of pretending he's reading.

“You expecting anyone?” Steve asks, getting to his feet and retrieving it from the inappropriately named Tech Hammock, where the tablet currently lives with Steve's electric razor, a couple of fossils the kids dug up, a pencil sharpener, two of Bucky's sketchbooks, and half a dozen multi-tool attachments for the prosthetic.

Bucky gives him an eloquent look over the washcloth. “Am I ever?”

“Oh, it's your sister,” Steve says, and then: “Uh,” as he realizes he's still naked. He rifles through his folded clothes and pulls on underwear and a shirt while Bucky laughs at him, and then he sits down carefully on the bedroll before he hits _answer_. Any other direction and he might accidentally display Bucky's backside. “Heya, Becks!”

“Hello, Stevie!” Becca says. She's wearing a beautiful emerald-green blouse with a rhinestone pin, the early morning light catching flatteringly in her silver curls; if she doesn't look like a million bucks before breakfast, even at ninety-seven, the world'll probably come to an end. She squints and lifts her glasses. “What in hell happened to your hair?”

“Me, mostly,” Bucky says, flopping down next to Steve and mussing it up further. He hasn't bothered putting on pants. Or a shirt, for that matter.

Steve bats him off. “I just helped deliver a colt. You should've seen him, Becks, he's gonna be huge! Well, for a pony.”

“I'll take your word for it, Farmer Joe,” Becca says, eyes crinkling. “Hay, Yankl.”

“Nu, Ryfka, vos makhstu?”

And they're off to the Yiddish races. Steve's always known a good few words, courtesy of all the time he spent around the Barneses growing up, and now that his Mongolian's at a stage Bucky deems acceptable, he's been getting proper Yiddish lessons, but he's still only at a conversational level and they talk so fast. Steve gets comfortable and lays his head down on Bucky's shoulder, closing his eyes and letting it wash over him, their tender voices and Becca's creaky laughter. He doesn't swim up until he hears Becca say: “...married?” in English.

“C'mon, Becks,” Bucky's saying. “Rabbi Hirsh is nice and all, but he's pretty conservative. Besides, a piece of paper doesn't change nothing.”

“I could send you wedding presents!”

“You could do that anyway.”

“I've already asked him,” Steve says, propping his elbow on Bucky's shoulder. “ _Last_ time he said it was a heteronormative institution that—something about capitalism, I wasn't really listening. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

“We're married in the eyes of God,” Bucky says, but he can't keep a straight face.

“The eyes of Octyabr, anyway,” Steve says.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “The two countries we're in ninety-five percent of the time don't have queer marriage anyway, so it's moot.”

“Wakanda does,” Steve feels the need to point out, even if he doesn't really have a dog in this race. “We're there at least every six months for your check-ups with Shuri, Buck.”

“Yeah, except we're not citizens, _Steven_.”

“Sure we are.”

Bucky sits bolt upright and stares at him. “Since when!”

“Uh,” Steve says, “Since we arrived? T'Challa didn't want to take any chances when it came to extradition.” He pauses. “You did _know_ Mowayndu was your social worker, right?”

Bucky says something tart in Yiddish.

“Wash your mouth,” Becca says mildly. “He talks big, Stevie, but that boy wants wedding bells. You drag him to a justice of the peace, you hear me? I'm counting on you. Did I ever tell you about the time Bucky asked me when—not if, but _when—_ I was going to marry you?”

Bucky passes over the tablet, tips dramatically back onto the pillows, and covers his face with his hands.

“ _No_ ,” Steve says, leaning forward. “Bucky mentioned it in his diary but—”

“It's not a _diary_ ,” Bucky informs his palms, “I don't keep _diaries_ ; did you see _Dear Diary_ even once in that whole—”

“No, it said _Dear Stevie_ , with a buncha hearts—”

“Anyway,” Becca says, before they can start shoving too much. “You remember when we were hanging out so much because Bucky was away being a genius at Princeton?” Bucky makes a noise like he's going to protest, so Steve claps a hand over his mouth. “Thanks. Don't lie, Buck, you were gone for so long I thought Momma was going to say kaddish. Well, I guess he convinced himself we were sweet on each other, because he sat me down and—oh, he had a whole speech, Steve, it was so lovely, I almost wanted to let him keep going.”

“I hate you,” Bucky says. It comes out more like _uh hayf oo_.

Becca ignores him. “I told him as far as I was concerned you were taken. Otherwise I would've said yes, of course.” Steve chokes on air. “Well, really! You were the only boy around who knew how to have fun!”

Bucky yanks Steve's hand away by the wrist. “Hey! The only boy around, she says. And what was I, chopped liver?”

“You wouldn't've known fun if it bit you on the ass,” Becca says, as Bucky sputters. “My grandkids have a wonderful word for men like you. A _nerd_.”

“She's got your number, Buck,” Steve says, grinning, and Bucky lifts his hands to the heavens and says, “Keyn ayn horeh!”

After they say goodbye to Becca, they eat dinner and bundle up before heading out to collect the babies for the night. If there isn't a hard frost in the morning, Steve'll eat his boots. They're finishing later than usual, but it's all right for them; the serum's given them both night vision like owls, and Bucky's was good already. Looking up from grabbing a particularly wriggly lamb, Steve catches a glimpse of Bucky's huge pupils in the moonlight and feels a hot tug in his belly, some old wild feeling stirring up in him at the sight of it, uncanny. The edges of their humanity, as Bucky sometimes says, their weaponness, but Steve disagrees: the very act of rising above the things they were created to be makes them more human, not less. Steve's surer about that than he is about a lot of things. He'll bring Bucky round one day. Until then, he'll just have to keep demonstrating how much he loves it, the strange ways they've traveled to get to where they are, the triumph of it all, the things that tried to kill them and failed. The strength in Bucky that has nothing to do with what was done to him on a metal table, all those years ago.

When Steve comes into the livestock ger with the last two goat kids, he catches Bucky leaning into the pen and scratching a sleepy lamb under the chin, smiling so soft it almost hurts Steve's heart. He looks up still wearing it. Steve kneels down and puts his dusty hands on Bucky's face and kisses him. Not just a casual peck but a real showy end-of-the-reel hero's reward; Steve would dip him if he didn't think he'd get clocked for it. Bucky startles, then laughs deep in his throat, and then finally melts, opening up soft and letting Steve have his say.

“What was that all about?” Bucky says, when he gets his breath back.

“No reason,” Steve says, and does it again, just because he can. “It's only,” and it feels redundant, the way Bucky'd looked just now. “Are you happy?” Steve says. Bucky's eyebrow lifts. “You wrote about how you wanted to do—more. And Becca was right, you were quiet, you were a good student, you were—”

“What're you trying to say?”

“Is this the life you wanted?” Steve asks. He's aware he's probably holding Bucky's hands too tightly. “Is this—are you _happy_? You wanted to be a scientist, you wanted to go to _Princeton_ , I—”

“I did go to Princeton,” Bucky says gently. “Hey. You think I'd be living out here if I didn't love it?” He shrugs. “Okay, sure, maybe this isn't the life I envisioned when I was sixteen, I don't even think I knew Mongolia _existed_ when I was sixteen, and I sure as hell didn't _want_ to know what the inside of a goat looked like, but I was also dumb and scared and—” Bucky takes a deep breath, “—pining over my best friend, and I had no idea,” that beautiful smile again, _Christ_ ; “No idea at all how big the world was or how much was in it or what I'd want to do if I had all the cards in front of me. I'm happy, Stevie. I promise. And hey,” Bucky adds, cuffing Steve's shoulder, “Who knows. Maybe I will finish up someday. I hear they got whole degrees online now,” and Steve can't not kiss him for that, too. “Mmph. God, you're handsy tonight. What's gotten into you?”

“I'm happy,” Steve says, “I'm—me too. Can't a guy be happy?”

“I suppose,” Bucky says, grinning. “Yeah, tiger. You sure as hell can.”

**Author's Note:**

> jhscdood: mags  
> jhscdood: I dare u  
> jhscdood: I dare u mags  
> jhscdood: to write something softer than what ____ just wrote
> 
> magdaliny: SWEATS
> 
> jhscdood: unrepentant fluff comma mags  
> jhscdood: UNrepentant. no shuva.
> 
> [later]
> 
> magdaliny: is fluff allowed to have genitals


End file.
